Dance to your daddy
by Tendo Rei
Summary: The old man sits in the home, waiting to die. Will the Scarecrow oblige?


**Dance to your daddy**

_Disclaimer: I don't own Batman, and I don't know about the copyright on "Dance to your daddy", so just to cover my ass I don't own that either._

* * *

He sits in the home, old and decrepit and worn out, looking and smelling very like an old paper lunch sack. He had been in this home longer than he could name, time melding his body to the greasy old furniture. He had no visitors, but that wasn't important. This wasn't where you went to be visited, this was where you went to die.

And really, he _should _die… that is, he should've been dead a **long** time ago. The man was a mockery of a human being, a bag of soft meat and failing nerve impulses barely held together by too much skin. The gristle of his nose had eaten away over time, so even when his eyes closed he stared you in the face. His eyes were now mismatched, one a filmy brown, the other milky white. It didn't matter which one was blind; the one that could see didn't work all that well either. One of his ears was a plastic mold.

So… yes. Not in the best shape, this man.

He didn't much mind, though. People who came here didn't much mind anything. That was why they were there in the first place, and why they remained. In fact, at least as far as the old man was concerned, it was pretty safe to say the decay on the outside matched the decay on the inside. He wasn't going senile; that occurred to healthier minds. What happened to his was something that happened to chunks of meat most people unthinkingly refer to as their mind– it had spoiled. Now the man had no clear thoughts, each burst of emotion took great effort and lasted a nanosecond. The poor nurses who had to change him never knew what they would find when they opened the door to his room; a moony-eyed old man, a hellfire–spitting mad old goat, or just a drooling baby.

He was repulsive, this old man.

But, he had been a young man once.

It is strange how time works in our minds. Most people, when they speak of time, they refer to it being a straight line. But if that were the case, then memory as we know it would be much easier. Really, memories bubble up at their own discretion; that hour you spent in the closet with the most attractive person you had ever known may become foggier with age, while that incident with the tire iron and the nun collecting donations would stay with you forever. Memories are unfair this way. You don't pick and choose, they do. Thoughts bubbled up in the man, seemed like only yesterday, today, tomorrow. He had been young, tall, attr–

No, not really attractive. But he had been tall, and thick where it counted. Chicks were willing to settle for less if less could open their beers for them. At least the chicks that would talk to men like _him_ were. And he was good at it too, the bar scene. He knew ten different ways to open a beer, twist–off or pop top, and make it entertaining. That's how he'd won…wasshername…_Lainie_! Yeah, that dame had been giving him the cold shoulder, until he bounced one off her date's forehead. The guy hadn't been too keen on it, but Lainie, she'd just _melted_. Perhaps that was why he hadn't called her the next day. She had given him everything in one show. Not that he didn't want that, he hated chicks who gave him even a little bit of tease. It was just that…what was there left, after a night like that?

Anyway, she'd missed her lady-time, he'd heard, and tearfully confessed to her boyfriend. He'd never heard it beyond that.

Aww, shit. His wrist was starting to itch.

He had no more mobility, an infirmity the orderlies fostered. It was easier for them when the old folks couldn't get into trouble, needed help for any little thing. 'Course, the downside to all that pampering was when moments like this occurred.

A mosquito buzzed on a screen. He tried to move his index finger, just that. He couldn't.

Damn.

He listened to the soothing click–clack of medicine trolley wheels traveling down the hall, trying to take his mind off the itch. It was nothing, really, like a pin scratch. But it was maddening all the same. The cart paused at his door for a moment, then moved on after seeing the card on his door. He was taken off medication a few days ago, when even his insurance realized that they didn't even want a hand in keeping this old bag of bones in the world anymore.

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking: _What kind of a person leaves an old man in a place like this? Are they poor? Or crazy? Or both?_

No? Well, you would've been right on one count anyway.

More filthy memories drifted up like scummy bubbles, popping and wafting their…_unique _fragrance through the air.

He had been quite a go-er in his youth, he had especially liked the little snobby debutantes trying to piss off daddy with a thug boyfriend. He let them drift easy for a while, thinking they ran the show, before he showed them who was boss. Most women didn't like his real face, realized daddy was in _fact _a very wise man and probably still willing to honor that check– well, most. There had been that one…now, what was _her_ name?...

The cart wheels rolled smoothly past his door again. He couldn't see the clock but knew it was not the right time for it to be back again. Unless he was losing vast tracks of time, the cart should've come back much later, nearly evening. And was it him, or did the cart pause again outside his door?

…_Andrea_!

That had been it!

Andrea, with the red hair and pretty green eyes and a nice laugh…

He had met her at a party being hosted at her father's pub, she had grown up around the boys and could give it as well as any dock worker. He really could've fallen for her.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

The cart continued smoothly down the hall.

She had been a nice medium, not too eager like the girls from the booze halls with clown-red lipstick who jumped all over you and didn't let a guy just _work, _buteasier than those snobby dames with stiff hair like surprised octopi and a face you could fry an egg on.

It had been…fun.

But, as these things inevitably turn out, they were due for their own bit of _fun_ about 7 ½ months down the line. He tried to back out of it at first, the old she–came–onto–me bit, but her father was a hard man. No one tampered with the seal on his only bottle of aspirin, if you catch my drift.

A sticky June wedding; he didn't fit well into his borrowed tuxedo and she was already showing too much to be excused. He tried to ignore the snickers.

Her dad still tried to make it better though, providing them with a miserable old tract house and him a job. Ha. That was a laugh. He wasn't a nine–to–five man; though he could do an honest day's work, he wanted an honest week's pay for it. It wasn't his fault, really. They could've had money. They might've gotten on. But that kid came and…

Well…

His wrist still itched, and he managed to twitch a finger. Promising.

He didn't want a son. Hell, he didn't want a kid, period, but a boy really threw a spanner in the works. His own father hadn't been too bad to him, a fairly nice if self-involved type, but he hated growing up. He hated the other boys. He grew up in the slums, everywhere the press of bodies, the stink of people living too close together, competition for every little mouthful, can't breathe, can't _breathe_.

He gasped.

Reality untangled itself from the past. He was sitting in his chair, reminiscing.

So he didn't want a son. It didn't help that the kid was so damn…_odd_. He didn't act normal for a little tyke, hardly ever cried. He always had that thousand-yard stare going, always looking right past you no matter what you shouted at him, no matter how hard you hit him…

…he didn't beat the kid, if that's what you're accusing with that down-the-nose look, mister. He wasn't like Louie down at the tracks who hit his kids with horseshoes and tack, did awful things to his daughter…

No he just…that kid _scared_ him a little. He was the only thing he had encountered in his entire life on which he never had an effect. He'd hold him close, tried to laugh and make _him_ laugh too…

The kid still stared.

He'd swear and swing and hit things, sometimes dishes, sometimes walls, sometimes the boy's mother. He'd slap the kid so hard he'd send him crashing to the floor, unaware of his own strength and how it applied to this little figure…

The kid still _stared._

Then he'd go to his ma.

Andrea hadn't been a bad wife. She'd put up with a lot of his antics. She turned a blind eye to the park in summer, where he'd go picking posies and sometimes invite them out to lunch afterwards. She endured his fists, and his rough words, which impressed even him. She never said anything, just stared a silent rebuke…

Her and that _kid_…

He'd never found it in himself to call him his son, barely looked like him anyway. He had his daddy's bone structure and not much else, sadly coupled with his mother's slight build. Had her green eyes, too, only hers were full of this inner fire she had. The boy's were dead, kind of similar to his friends who had been away to the war, like they had seen too much and too quickly. Didn't look too good, with his skinny little stick-body and head about a size to big, hair all over the place. That, he had to secretly admit, was like him as well, only he kept his securely pomaded back. Like most things from his past, he learned how to make it work for him.

He didn't stay too long with them, anyway.

Halfway through grade school, and he split.

Kid was doing fine, they were doing fine without him anyway. Boy turned out to be a winner in the brain department; got that from his ma too. Always going to the library, coming back with a wagon of books and a bloody nose.

Oh, he wasn't too popular.

If the old man was more of a thinker in his halcyon days, he might've drawn a parallel between his own school days and his departure from his family's life. Perhaps the kid's problems were hittin' too close to home for comfort… and besides, he was chafin' around the collar. It was time to hit the streets again. He would still technically be in his prime for five years.

Well, technicalities are hardly ever what they seem to be. He met his particular technicality in a blind alley, the brother of a small-time bookie he'd roughed up a bit. He ate brass, and pretty hard, too. Laid him out nice and neat, there on the sidewalk. Took out his knee, and a few of his ribs for good measure.

After a cruelly short time in the hospital recuperating, he was let back onto the streets for a lifetime of health problems. He wasn't so hot anymore. Work was harder to find. He was a fair gambler, though, and managed to tread water for a while.

That's how he sees his son for the second time.

He was sitting way high in the bleachers, appearing to be someone's shabby deadbeat father sneaking in under his wife's radar, but really trying to avoid discovery of the fact that he didn't have a kid in this school. It's a high school basketball game, and for a while everything's good. Then, this tall, lanky boy with a head like thatch sits in front of him, and when he goes to tell the kid to move he turns around. He's wearing glasses, and he's bigger, but ain't no mistaking that glassy green stare.

He swallows nervously. The half-hearted "hiya, kid" is implemented, and is given a chilly reception. After a while, the ice thaws the tiniest bit, just enough for his son to tell him how much he hates him. He's really made his life easier by leaving, don't misunderstand, but the kid didn't think he'd left soon enough. The subsequent argument was not productive, especially when it caught the attention of the assistant coach, who also happened to be a former marine. And also happened to be related to the bookie he was currently dodging.

Happy reunion.

He raised his finger ever so slowly, and then felt a snap. Well _dammit._

He hadn't ever seen the kid again, but would get chills every once in a while, like he had that thousand-yard-stare burning a hole in his back. He retired before the rogues gallery hit the town, before you had to dress up a little just to ice a guy. It was just as well. He wasn't built for slick mobster work. Guys like him were a dime a dozen.

Then one icy winter, his back gives out. Not his fault, a goon running from the cops brushes past him and splat! He's on his back in a patch of ice on the corner of Broad and Kane. And back he goes to the hospital. It seemed funny at the time, the hoodlum, because he didn't act like the others he'd come into contact with. He hadn't run from the cops with fear, all flailing limbs and frantic turns. He'd run steady, with a purpose, almost like he was leading the cop somewhere…

Odd-looking thing, too. No fancy dress, just a torn up old shirt, like the ones he used to and still wore. Burlap mask. And, maybe this was just him, the yob might even have slowed the tiniest bit when he came up to the old man. Maybe, just maybe, he pushed him over into the path of the cop. But that wouldn't have been so unusual. In war, you threw everything you had at the enemy, and some things you didn't. It didn't matter who was right or wrong, it was just war.

He didn't fault him.

Wheels again. Getting closer.

He was suddenly, inexplicably, covered in freezing sweat. This didn't seem right.

The knob clicked and started to turn.

He never figured out how he'd wound up in _this_ home exactly, that was the strange thing. It could've been any old raisin ranch in the city, or even a gutter. Why this place?

Was it because someone wanted him to stay put where they could find him? Who?

He'd fallen a second time, just outside a bank heist. The head man could be the son of the burlap thug earlier, he's got the same style, same jerky gait. He's more purposeful, though. And he's not running. He's casually walking with his thugs out of a bank full of screaming people, and just so happens to notice the old man across the way.

_This_ one stops. Gives him the full stare.

Then comes over.

He never gets asked any questions; just the groceries ripped from his arms and a gun barrel to his temple. He goes down, and lands wrong too. Something metal's underneath him. His back goes crunch like celery. And that freak looms over him, breathing heavy, peering at him through the eyeholes of his raggedy nightmare mask.

Then he leaves.

And _he_ winds up here.

The door opens.

It's an orderly all right, but it's a new guy. The old man's memorized the faces of his regular caretakers, and he's never seen this one before. Big nose, looks like a cow-catcher. Body's all angles and joints, not an inch of him that isn't awkward. Hair ruddily sticking up in a cowlick that would not have been at all out of place on an actual cow. Yet he moved with an awkward sort of grace, glancing at his clipboard and nimbly replacing it, his feet doing a little dance as he sorted through different bottles.

The old man grunts and makes a noise like toothpaste being squeezed out of the tube.

"Grnhph."

He's trying to speak.

"Hrn…lready…hd that t'day…"

For a man in his condition, it's quite an accomplishment. But the orderly goes on dancing, fingers doing a little tap-tapping two-step among the various bottles.

"..lready…had…m'vitmins…"

"This isn't a vitamin, Mr. Bones. I know you've already had one today. This is something to help you sleep." The tone is smooth and darkly efficient.

The old man's gummy eyes widen a little in surprise; not only did an orderly address him by _name_, he was giving him medication _against_ the explicit instruction of the head nurse.

"Nver…seen you here…b'fore…" Talking was getting easier the more he did it, so he tried to keep it up.

"I know, Mr. Bones. Normally I am in charge of another department entirely." The smooth, clipped tones continued, and the old man was easing up a little. Well, he _did_ sound like he knew what he was doing.

He settled back with a few satisfied smacks. He had always been a creature of comfort, living in a place where you literally didn't have to _do_ anything was his idea of heaven. Even if it was this breeding ground for every bed-dwelling insect known to man. Hell, if he hadn't been so decrepit, he might even've had a go at one of the nurses…

…Hey, now…did that guys seem just the tiniest bit _familiar?_

He hadn't been so certain of it before, but he did look like someone he'd seen before…

The orderly turned around, giving him a glassy green stare.

"Your medication will be ready in a moment, Mr. Bones."

Where? Where did he know him from?

"If you'll just be patient, I'll have it ready in no time at all."

He fought tooth and nail through the thick jungle of his mind, synapses firing and misfiring, trying to get _somewhere_. He was trying to remember, trying to find…

The orderly was humming a soothing little song. It had been big on the radio when he was younger. Funny that he should do that now…

The old man's face creased in a grin. Now he remembered.

Coming home late from Andrea's dad's place, stinking of cheap cigarillos. Taking off his shoes to sneak in, Andrea asleep on the couch.

And the tyke awake in his crib.

It didn't matter how late he got home, little Jonnie was always awake and waiting for his pops. He saw him and gave a baby grin, all gums. Andrea said he'd start teething soon, getting edgy in the night. But right now he was just like other babies. And it was Daddy time.

He swooped down and picked the tyke up, squealing with joy, crushing him against his cheap suit full of wrinkles. He'd toss him in the air, up and down, up and down, the only trick he knew. But by god, Johnnie loved it.

It was Daddy time.

For a while, just a sliver of time, they had been like a real family. Daddy with his nine-to-five job, mommy holding down the fort, junior in his crib. He had thought he could be happy, in this little slice of normality. He could be a better man.

Of course, I don't have to tell _you_ it didn't last.

The clever and curious toddler was replaced by a sullen and reserved little boy, always staring at this stranger.

He wasn't _little_ Jonnie anymore.

The orderly's hands danced, his eyes fixed and still in his face. He looked like one of those clockwork wonders the one time Andrea could persuaded him to take them all to the Future Fair in Gotham proper. Jonnie hadn't cared for them as much as he thought he would; didn't all little boys enjoy things that wound up and went? But no, he liked the chemical wonderland much more. The technician, a scrawny guy in thick birth control glasses, made a rubber ball on the spot, gave it to his son. He held it with more awe than anything his old pop had given him.

For his next birthday, his pops gave him a Lil' Chemist kit. He loved it. He _really_ loved it. Didn't even look at his poor dad, who had to scrape the money together to get it. Had to scrape a few other things to _get_ the money to scrape together, in fact.

The orderly hummed, and it was soothing to his dead ears. To him it was just a buzz, but a comforting buzz. Like had heard it somewhere before…

_Dance to your daddy,_

_My little laddie,_

_Dance to your daddy,_

_My little lamb…_

He cooed as he bounced Jonnie up in the air, his little mouth wide with gasping laughter.

_Dance to your daddy…_

How did the orderly know that song? It hadn't been played on any radio he'd heard in a long time…

"Finished." The orderly screwed the last jar shut and held out a small cup of medicine. At least, it _should_ be medicine…

What was he doing up here at this time of day, anyway?

"Son…that song…that you were…" he tried to go faster, he swallowed hard and _tried_. He had a good grip on himself, better than he'd had in a long time. He had to finish this thought before it went away again, like everything went away.

"You remember it? I'm surprised you do. In fact, I'm shocked that anything can penetrate that gin-soaked nightmare you call a brain anymore." The orderly said as calmly as if he were reading off side effects of a blood pressure medication

The old man struggled to speak. There was something about this orderly, something important. Damnit brain, **work**!

"Why…"

"It's a nice song, isn't it?" The orderly continued, stripping off his latex gloves. "My father used to sing it to me. Before he left us, that is."

He checked his watch. His nametag said _Crane_.

He had it, the very tail end of a memory. He dug in his fingernails.

Andrea…

Working long days and nights at her dad's business…

_Andrea_…

Working at Tassell and…

Tassell _and_…

…_Crane_! Tassel and _Crane_!

Andrea Bones, née Crane. Must've gone back to that after he left the punchline of their marriage.

Andrea and little Jonnie Crane…

"Wh…what's your Christian name, son?" He wheezed, his mouth pulpy. God, he was so thirsty. Was that a drink the young man held in his hand?

"_My_ name?" The orderly blinked and smiled. It wasn't nice, like smiling didn't come easy to him.

"Why, it's Jonathan."

His mind, on which he had been exerting the last vestigial traces of control he had, slipped back into the murky depths it normally resided in.

"Jonathan." He sighed. "That's a nice name."

The orderly nodded encouragingly, handing him the cup. The medicine swirled around; mixed it all by himself, clever lad.

He tilted his head back and drank every drop.

"Very nice." He gasped when he had finished. "Thank you, young man."

The orderly smiled again, nicer this time. He smiled back.

And then the past opened wide and swallowed him whole.

* * *

_Author's note: Brutal. I wanted to do an origins story, something that really explored the Scarecrow's psyche. I ended up writing this instead. But I kid. Yes, that is Jonathan, finishing off dear old dad. His last name, Bones, comes from his son's favorite tale. I thought it would be appropriate. Usually when I write a story, I come up with the basic premise first and the title last. This one was different, I thought of a title and built around it. Originally it was much darker, how dark I'll leave to your imaginations, but glance up at the title and let the full horror it implies sink in. To cap off this unusually long (for me) author's note, I want to assure anyone who cares I'll try to get back to writing_ Cube_ soon, I just keep putting it off. I'm good at that. _: ) 


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